


rise

by theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes



Series: haunt [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Jaskier POV, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Unreliable Narrator, unreality, vampire time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes/pseuds/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes
Summary: Here is what he knows: his name is Jaskier. He died, but he didn’t die. It hurts to talk and it hurts to sing but he does it anyways, endlessly. He relearns how it feels to laugh and complain. He writes it into his bones.He is made of blood, slow moving in his veins. He is a monster but he is not that kind of monster. He puts his nose to the wind, tastes the air, sees the world so sharply it pricks and burns.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: haunt [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620061
Comments: 88
Kudos: 1300
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection, GERALT AND JASKIER ARE FUCKING GAY, Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	rise

(His throat is slit cleanly and he does not die. 

Or, perhaps:

His throat is slit cleanly and he dies messy. Everything is fuzzy and angry. He is a shell, bloody, tasting iron and ozone. 

This is what he is: a man, almost. Lying on a table and walking along a path. He has his lute in his hands and he is drowning, slowly, and he is puppeted by strings he can feel hooked deep in his bones. 

Nothing makes sense in this dead world. Everything is very grey and very red. He does not breathe and still he is suffocating. So many contradictions, all at once- so much blood, and yet he’d died cleanly. Hadn’t he? 

What is his name? 

There is a name on his tongue, Geralt-Witcher, but it is not his own. There is a woman next to him ( _witch witch witch_ ). He is a body and he is something else, standing, walking, talking, singing. They speak to half of him and the other half bleeds. 

Not half. Two wholes, separated. Everything he is is a ghost and everything he is is on a table, drained, drinking, red red _red_. 

This is what he is: a paradox, given two shapes. He is frightened and euphoric. He is used to kill and he is used to hurt and he sits by a fire, eyes on the stars. He does not know how he died but he died alone. 

He knows how he died: held by the arms, beaten by his lute until the strings broke, and then sliced into silence. Except he didn’t die. He drowned and his blood turned to fire, turned to ice, turned to liquid gold. 

There is no before. Before is a mountaintop, wind whipping at his hair. Before is singing, dancing, sex, crying, hunger sharp in his belly, loving loving loving and hating hating hating. It is too much and he forgets but then he is nothing so he remembers. There is no before and there is nothing but before because there can be no after. He is a shade and he is a corpse and he is desperately, glowingly alive. 

Here: Geralt-Witcher, in front of him. He is beautiful and he hates him so much it rips at him like claws in his belly. He is a snapped out argument and he is soft words. He is a horse, chestnut and touchy, and he is a wolf pendant. There is nothing in the world that he knows more than him. He knows nothing at all about him.

Here: there is a man leaning over him him. He has rotten teeth and he does not know his name and every day- he does not know it in any part of him that thinks in sentences and words and time but every day he is cut and bled. There is a wild darkness in it and it makes his mouth go numb. He can feel chaos swirling in him, dark and hot. He can feel everything in the world, can hear their hearts beating, can feel the crawl of blood in their veins. 

Here: there is something in him that takes his body-on-the-table and makes it sharp, pushes into the shade-in-the-world and makes his words biting. He bleeds there and he draws blood here. He can make himself look like anything he wants and he chooses himself, blue eyes, and himself, ripped to pieces. 

He has been dead forever. There is no other way to be. 

“Tell me how you died,” says the witch (he’d hated her, hated her, _hated_ her). He does not know how he died. He does not know anything in the world. 

“Alone,” he says. 

-

Here is what he knows: he has a past and he does not have a past. He has a present and he doesn’t. There are two hims, split on the world, and they are growing closer. 

Here’s what he knows: a memory. He is a little boy and he is crying and his mother snaps at him so harsh it draws metal into his throat. He is a little boy and he picks up a lute. Women, men, fading glimpses and touches and bruises. A Witcher, white hair, head ducked in a tavern. 

Here is what he knows: everything. Nothing. Silence amplified into a shout. What it feels like to die and continue forever. The words he needs to make everyone feel the hurt in him. 

-

There are two hims, split on the world, and they are growing closer. His head grows clearer. He begins to see in double, in the room and on the boat, in the tavern, right up next to Geralt. He feels it crackling like electricity, like the taste of blood across his lips when he dies. They are closer closer closer, Geralt-Witcher tired and angry and the witch is still here, she’s still here, why is she _here_? It is about Geralt, it has always been about Geralt. He hates him so much. He misses him more than anything in the world even though he’s been beside him the entire time. 

This is what he remembers: silk and coin and the taste of bread and cheese. A huge, rough hand on his shoulder and a song on his lips. That’s what it is to be alive, or it is what it is to remember being alive, which is not the same but it’s close enough. 

-

He meets himself. Sees himself. He screams his past and present loud swirling chaotic hot and dark he tastes blood and he

He tastes blood. It is his blood and he died and he tastes his blood sweet on his lips, sweet as anything, sweet as a cake. He is tasting with his body and he is tasting with his shade and they are together, they are _together_ , blood on his lips, blood on his tongue, blood in his veins and he wakes up 

-

He is cold 

-

He is cold and he is so thirsty. He is so thirsty. His heart beats One-Two-Three-Four in his chest, measures of a song he’d forgotten how to sing

The world has forgotten him and he pushes himself back in

-

He sits on a horse. One person. His name is Jaskier and he is thirsty. His name is Jaskier and he is alive. He can taste blood in the air, sweet and thick, coming from Geralt and Yennefer, but he will not take from them like he’s taken from so many people. Chaos, hot and dark, swirling in his chest. 

He has been made into a monster but he is not that kind of monster. He crouches in the underbrush, a predator, and snatches a rabbit mid-jump. The taste of it bursts red on his tongue. 

-

A lifetime ago, a year ago, forever ago, yesterday: his throat was slit cleanly and he died. 

His fingers know the strings of a lute and his voice needs to sing. He has been made into a monster but he will write songs about it until he is killed for good. He is ruined and he is building himself back together with tree-sap and dried blood. 

-

Here is what he knows: his name is Jaskier. He died, but he didn’t die. It hurts to talk and it hurts to sing but he does it anyways, endlessly. He relearns how it feels to laugh and complain. He writes it into his bones. 

He is made of blood, slow moving in his veins. He is a monster but he is not that kind of monster. He puts his nose to the wind, tastes the air, sees the world so sharply it pricks and burns. 

-

Here is what he knows: Jaskier died a year ago. Jaskier died and Jaskier rose behind him, sharper, colder. He would like to be what he was but he will never be what he was. 

-

Here is what he is: blood, red on his lips and in his eyes. Sweet, thick, dark. He is a rabbit drained- he is pressing up to a heartbeat every night and closing his eyes to sleep. 

Geralt is warm and he allows him close. Jaskier is cold and he will never take from him. 

-

There are scars on his body. A slash across his throat, his wrists, his thighs. Major arteries like all he is is a source. He touches them, softly, breathes in the sting of it, remembers how it felt on the table and in the world.

Blood is blood is blood. Jaskier is pumping with it, living with it. 

He will never, ever be on the table again.)

**Author's Note:**

> i just felt like this wouldnt be actually finished in my head without a jaskier pov lmao
> 
> if u liked this! pls leave a comment or send me an ask over at redjewelsforeyes.tumblr.com. ily


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